A bit of history
The first piece of what is now known as Overseas Group – Overseas Cargo International - was registered in Saint-Petersburg in 1994.
From the first day of its activity the company acted as a sub-agent of one of the leading marine carriers in the world – Evergreen Marine Corporation and specialized exclusively on containerized cargo transportations.
At first the majority of traffic was routed via ports of Finland with further delivery of containers to Moscow and other regions of Russia by trucks. With the goal of a better coordination of deliveries in mind, right after the company establishment in Saint-Petersburg the branch office was opened in Moscow.
Simultaneously with acting as a sub-agent of Overseas Cargo International we started our self-sufficient forwarding. By doing that the company focused not only on re-selling rather cheap sea rates obtained from the Principal, but on development of additional – value added – services
In 1996 with the goal of improving the quality and decreasing the costs of road transport services in mind, the executives of the Group made a decision to establish our own trucking company. Intercargo Plus company with its own trucking fleet becomes a member of the Group.
Crisis of 1998 became a real test of resiliency of our group of companies. It forced all the staff to demonstrate its competitive and fighting spirit to the full extent. There was nobody to count upon. We realized that facing the dramatic drop of cargo volume only the high quality and wide range of provided services would allow us to keep enough customers to survive under these circumstances.
Starting from 1999 the company energetically develops the new business - warehousing services at the territory of Finland. We established our own warehouse facilities over there that have been constantly growing. Our customers got opportunity to store their cargoes outside of the customs territory of Russian Federation and to form commercial batches of cargoes for further importation into Russia based on the actual demand of their clients. To optimize deliveries from the warehouses in Finland we started to offer new services for our customers – transportation of customer’s goods by large-capacity trucks with volume up to 170 cub.m.
Economic recovery of 2000th in Russia and following steep rise of cargo volumes makes the executives of Group to realize the need for internal re-structuring. Besides, the demand in well-managed co-ordination of the process of cargo dispatch from ports of shipment increases constantly. At the same time clients are demanding additional services to be offered for handling cargos prior loading for the sea shipping.
In 2003 executives of the Group made a decision to spin-off forwarding business into the separate entity. Within the structure of the Group logistic company Overseas Freight Agency was established, that became an official agent in Russia of Evergreen Logistics Corporation – a member of Evergreen Group. As a result clients of Overseas Freight Agency received access to all the services offered by our partner in China and other countries of Far East as well as North America – specifically, far-reaching network of the offices, warehouses for consolidation and temporary storage of goods, export licenses, well developed communication systems, etc.
In 2004 in Moscow the daughter company Overseas Freight Agency-MSC is registered, that as a new activity and in close co-operation with Evergreen Logistics Corporation starts developing airfreights from Far East.
Simultaneously, expanding the reach of our services, another company branch opens in Novorossiysk.
12-years co-operation in the area of line agency services with Evergreen Marine Corporation resulted in registration in 2005 in Saint-Petersburg of Joint Stock enterprise Evergreen Shipping Agency (Russia) Limited, where Overseas Cargo International is a co-owner.
To provide to the customers of the Group high-quality cargo transportation services from other regions that were not covered previously, in 2005 the Group established good relations with Holland company West Europe Container Line B.V. ( W.E.C. Lines B.V. ), offering container transport to/from Europe, as well as to/from countries of East Africa, Caribbean Basin and Cuba. At the end of 2008 to move this co-operation to the next level a separate company W.E.C. Russia was established within the Group.
Overseas Group of companies looks confidently in the future and continues to develop and to diversify its activity by expanding both its geography and spectrum of rendered services. We are sure that however far corner of the world you would like to bring good to or from we will always be able to meet the challenge and keep you absolutely satisfied with the service .
Round the World – Round the Clock !
